Newsletter – n°21 – May 2013

Initiative worth following

Migration-development-integration were at the heart of the two days of reflection organised by EU NOMAD and that gathered researchers, members of the civil society, local and regional elected representatives and representatives of the European institutions.

Despite extremely restrictive mobility policies for 2/3 of the planet’s inhabitants, the number of international migrants is estimated at 240 million (contrary to certain common preconceptions, migration flows to the South are almost as important as flows to the North). At the very gates of Europe, we find situations that represent a real step back ; this can be explained by the absence of world governance on migration policies, which are defined exclusively by immigration countries.

It seems essential to move towards a more positive vision of migration and to underline mobility as a human development factor and, as such, to consider it as a world public good, and no longer through the prism of security policies.

The relationship between migration and a state’s development is a more complex but central question, especially in view of the some 400 billion dollars that migrants send back to their country of origin every year (for the sake of comparison, in 2012, the net public development aid contribution of the members of the Development Aid Commission of the OECD were of 125.6 billion dollars).

PLATFORMA was represented in this event by Yacine Diakité, Deputy Mayor of Aubervilliers (France) in charge of associations and participative democracy and by Juan Jose Ortiz Quevedo, Deputy Mayor of Cadiz (Spain).

Mrs. Diakité recalled the role of migrants and migrants’ associations in the identification and implementation of decentralised cooperation projects, as well as their expertise of the problems in countries of origin (knowledge of the field and of the actors) which helps these partnerships structure their work around concrete projects and be more effective.

Mr. Ortiz Quevedo presented the experience of Cadiz working with migrants’ associations in the implementation of solidarity and co-development projects.

At the end of the seminar, EU NOMAD summarised some lines of thought and issued recommendations along four main axes: i. diversity, intercultural relations and citizen participation as a tool for development; ii. the support to capacity management for local and regional authorities and civil society organisations in the domain of migration-development-integration; iii. dialogue between civil society and local and regional decision makers in the planning of development cooperation projects and iv. the enhancement of networking practices and exchanges.

You can obtain the recommendations from Laurence Dufayand more information can be found on the EU NOMAD network at www.eunomad.org.